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THE TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951)
Directed & Produced by: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger.
Written by: Powell & Pressburger, based upon the opera by Jacques Offenbach, with English libretto by Dennis Arundell, translated from the French text by Jules Barbier.
Director of Photography: Christopher Challis.
Edited by: Reginald Mills.
Music conducted by: Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart., with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Released by: Criterion.
Country of Origin: UK. 127 min. Not Rated.
With: Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine, Robert Rounseville, Ludmilla Tcherina, Pamela Brown & Ann Ayars.
DVD Features: Newly restored high-definition digital transfer. Commentary by director Martin Scorsese & film-music historian Bruce Eder. New video interview with director George A. Romero. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (1956), musical short directed by Michael Powell, based on the Goethe story. Rare collection of production designer Hein Heckroth’s sketches & paintings. Photo gallery. Trailer. Optional English subtitles. New essay by film historian Ian Christie.

This film version of the 1881 opera – sparklingly transferred from a British Film Institute restoration – does not shy away from artifice, emphasizing the tension between reality and illusion. The initial garishness perfectly serves the content. Laudably played by Robert Rounseville, Hoffmann, a stand-in for the writer E.T.A. Hoffmann whose work inspired the opera, pursues love thwarted by a histrionically mysterious villain, played in all three tales by Robert Helpmann. In fact, The Tales of Hoffmann succeeds largely due to how it dares viewers to become engrossed despite its self-consciousness. Wind vanes turning to the music, the visible lip-synching, prime color design, jump-cut sequences and makeshift effects all emphasize its fakery (such as a robotic doll’s destruction; though its body parts are supposed to appear unattached, the black cloth covering the rest of performer Moira Shearer is clearly visible).

Influenced by ballet, song, painting, and drama, Hoffmann is clearly hyper-surrealistic, setting standards for later works, from Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to Baz Luhrmann’s entire career. Moreover, its objects of affection – the doll that seems human through magic spectacles, a soul-stealing temptress, and a fatally sick, gullible young woman (all played with panache by, respectively, Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tcherina, and Ann Ayars) – reinforce the deception of appearances. Though the film is visually riveting, the lyrics, even in English, are hard to understand without the subtitles. Additionally, the score, while occasionally lush and stirring, does have some dry patches.

DVD Extras: Though Ian Christie’s essay illuminates the film’s initial critical reception, director George A. Romero’s interview fascinates in his description of Hoffmann’s dreamlike effect on him when he first saw it at age 11. Romero is enamored with its transparency, from its reversed frames for reversal of action to the aforementioned black-cloth trick, which he used for a scene in Creepshow. Much of the commentary track by historian Bruce Eder is dryly informative; however, he gives an insightful overview of the lives of Hoffmann and Offenbach.

Much more trenchant is Scorsese’s analysis. Like Romero, Scorsese’s imagination was first captured by the film as a child. He talks about the narrative-propelling choreography, from gestures to camera angles, and how this “composed film” influenced the way he moves his camera according to music. He cites the close-ups on Helpmann’s expressive face as inspiration for shots of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver and emphasizes the excessive elements driving the narrative, which he points to as maybe why the third and tragic story, though ultimately satisfying, is not as compelling as the others. Reymond Levy
May 5, 2006